


some moments last forever

by Capitola



Series: bodies reassembling down where the worms crawl [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Ear Piercings, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22077346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capitola/pseuds/Capitola
Summary: Nott's pierced ears: an introspection.
Series: bodies reassembling down where the worms crawl [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137983
Kudos: 36





	some moments last forever

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags, this is pretty heavy.

She starts with the lobes, because she misses the feel of it. Veth had pierced ears, and she deserves something nice, doesn’t she? She doesn’t lack for baubles to put in them; there’s always plenty of old jewelry lying around, and possession is ten tenths of goblin law. She tries not to think about the people that they came from. 

There’s no shortage of needles either, or a bit of old apple to hold up against her ear while she passes the needle through the candle flame. She doesn’t know what it will feel like. Veth’s ears were pierced when she was a baby. 

She hopes it’ll hurt. She hopes it’ll be staggering, take her mind off this godsawful place. She finds a stick to bite down on to avoid crying out. There’s nothing worse than drawing attention to herself here, the goblins (the  _ other _ goblins, she thinks, morosely) seize on any chance to jeer at her. What’s worse, she’s getting better at understanding what they’re saying when they do. 

The needle’s hot enough to be sterilized, so she holds it up, taking a few practice stabs to make sure she gets the placement right. _ Not that it matters anyways, not that this awful body could possibly look any  _ worse. The mirror she has is tarnished and dirty, and that’s for the best because it means she doesn’t have to focus on her whole face, just the ear. 

When she stabs it through, the pain radiates out from her ear to her whole head, almost knocking her over. She bites down on the stick, breathing for what feels like an eternity until the white-hot pain slowly coalesces back into her ear, settling into a low, throbbing pain. She feels a trickle of blood over her fingers as she slides the needle out and threads a gold hoop through.

The other one is better, because she’s expecting the pain, not that it makes it easier but she knows what to anticipate. Pain, waiting, blood, hoop. She examines her handiwork in the mirror carefully, just looking at her ears, though it’s awful enough to think of those things as her ears. The pain will probably keep her awake at night, leave her unable to toss and turn without lying on one of them. She’ll need to keep the hoops in all the time for a while—at least a month, if she remembers correctly. It doesn't matter, she hates to sleep these days. Dreams are even worse than waking.

She does the first ones along the cartilage almost exactly a month later.

She’d known the person they brought in to the torturer’s shack this morning. Not well, but she’d known their face. A trader who used to pass through Felderwin every so often, gangly and friendly. 

She doesn’t bother with the slow, patient task of passing the needle through the candle this time, she just splashes goblin moonshine over it and hopes for the best. If she dies of gangrene at least she won’t fucking be here. This time, when she looks in the mirror, she catches a glimpse of her eye, glowing and yellow. 

Only one practice stab before she puts it through the ear. No stick, so she bites down on her lip instead and draws blood. She deserves it, deserves it for everything she did today, and yesterday, and all the days after this. 

Another gold hoop, and then she repeats it for the other ear. 

By the time she meets Caleb, she has four in each ear. One more that she did before she left the goblin camp, and another she did just last week, after she found a pretty set of earrings in a purse she’d stolen, tiny delicate stones that might have been diamonds. The earrings were too expensive for her to have, but when she puts the bandages over her ears, no one can tell she’s got them in, anyway. The Crownsguard don’t bother with taking the bandages off, and so she’s still got all of them. 

The first time she takes the bandages off around her head for him, his eyes widen at the glint of gold and jewels. 

“They are lovely,” he says. “Are these common in your tribe?”

“No,” she replies, a little too sharply. “I do them myself.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _Snakes in the grass beneath our feet, rain in the clouds above_  
>  _Some moments last forever, but some flare out with love, love, love_  
>  \- The Mountain Goats, "Love love love"


End file.
